Environmental problems associated with hazardous wastes, toxic water and air pollutions have attracted much attention in recent years. Among them, organic dyes that contain major group of pollutants produced during their use industrial processes, and organo-sulfur compounds in the form of thiophene, dibenzothiophene and related compounds that form a major part of sulfur contaminants in fuels. To solve these problems there is a need to develop reactive catalysts having specificity toward particular compounds, and resistance to catalyst poisoning resulting in quick reduction in reactivity.
Cheng et al. (Adv. Materials 2006, 18: 2561-2564) disclosed MoS2 nanotubes decorated with Ni nanoparticles that exhibit high reactivity and selectivity with respect to thiophene and thiophene derivatives.